Scruffy little weed shows Darwin was right as evolution moves on

Times Online | 2003-02-20 | Anthony Browne, Environment Editor

[Junior]

IT STARTED with a biologist sitting on a grassy river bank in York, eating a sandwich. It ended in the discovery of a “scruffy little weed with no distinguishing features” that is the first new species to have been naturally created in Britain for more than 50 years.

The discovery of the York groundsel shows that species are created as well as made extinct, and that Charles Darwin was right and the Creationists are wrong. But the fragile existence of the species could soon be ended by the weedkillers of York City Council’s gardeners.

Richard Abbott, a plant evolutionary biologist from St Andrews University, has discovered “evolution in action” after noticing the lone, strange-looking and uncatalogued plant in wasteland next to the York railway station car park in 1979. He did not realise its significance and paid little attention. But in 1991 he returned to York, ate his sandwich and noticed that the plant had spread.

Yesterday, Dr Abbott published extensive research proving with DNA analysis that it is the first new species to have evolved naturally in Britain in the past 50 years.

“I’ve been a plant evolutionary biologist all my life, but you don’t think you’ll come across the origin of a new species in your lifetime. We’ve caught the species as it has originated — it is very satisfying,” he told the Times. “At a time in Earth’s history when animal and plant species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate, the discovery of the origin of a new plant species in Britain calls for a celebration.”

The creation of new species can takes thousands of years, making it too slow for science to detect. But the York groundsel is a natural hybrid between the common groundsel and the Oxford ragwort, which was introduced to Britain from Sicily 300 years ago. Hybrids are normally sterile, and cannot breed and die out.

But Dr Abbott’s research, published in the journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles, shows that the York Groundsel is a genetic mutant that can breed, but not with any other species, including its parent species. It thus fits the scientific definition of a separate species.

“It is a very rare event — it is only known to have happened five times in the last hundred years” Dr Abbott said. It has happened twice before in the UK — the Spartina anglica was discovered in Southampton 100 years ago, and the Welsh groundsel, discovered in 1948.

The weed sets seed three months after germinating and has little yellow flowers. The species, which came into existance about 30 years ago, has been called Senecio eboracensis, after Eboracum, the Roman name for York. According to the research, it has now spread to spread to several sites around York, but only ever as a weed on disturbed ground.

However, more than 90 per cent of species that have lived subsequently become extinct, and its future is by no means certain.

“It is important for it to build up its numbers rapidly, or it could get rubbed out — which would be sad. The biggest threat to the new species is the weedkillers from the council,” Dr Abbott said.

However, he does not plan to start a planting programme to ensure his discovery lives on. “The next few years will be critical as to whether it becomes an established part of the British flora or a temporary curiosity. But we will let nature take its course,” he said.

[AndrewC]

It can't be denied that there are extremely rich and greedy televangelists. Therefore, if the same standard is applied to clergymen as to scientists... well, *shrugs* you get the point by now, I think.

Yes, It is called the "Clinton Defense".

[plusone]

Thanks, you've given a well reasoned reply. It's true that zebras and mules etc obviously are in the 'horse family', even without dna it is easy to see the family resemblance. But those other creatures that you posted pictures of, how can anyone be sure they are proto-horses? That's the problem that many of us have, I think. I'm not anti-evolution", more of an agnostic, I think. They just haven't done a good enough job proving their point. There sems to be many leaps of faith trying to piece together the fossil record. Thanks.

[Con X-Poser]

Before I waste any more time with you, please list your credentials and qualifications pertaining to evolution.

<< BWAAAAHAHAHA! List your own >>

I'm not the one assailing Dr. Mastropaulo's qualifications. Are you afraid to have your comrade list his credentials publicly?

[Doctor Stochastic]

I went to high school in the 1950s and Piltdown was debunked in the science books then. I think you misstate the facts. Could you post the edition of a 1980s textbook that claims that Piltdown is genuine?

[Doctor Stochastic]

One must invoke Godwins Rule. As the first person to gratuiously bring up the Nazis shows the lack of ability to make a coherent argument, you are declared the loser.

[Condorman]

So lessee... The expert YOU submitted to support your point turns out to be anything but, and the paper which was to provide a brilliant refutation to the idea the humans are primates is no where to be found, and the best you can do is ask for a list of degrees?

You submitted Dr. Mastropaulo referencing a 3-in-1 cite, none of which were found to be legitimate. The onus is upon you to either produce the paper or retract the point. I've seen 7th graders with better research skills.

[js1138]

Something like this appearing in a lesser-publicized journal makes me wonder if this academic was just trying to avoid hard-core peer review that most folks get when submitting articles to places like Nature or Science.

This claim will get a thorough anal exam, and pretty soon. I count myself among the evolutionists, but I will not be shocked if the claim falls.

[js1138]

Read that again until it sinks in. The hominid and ape fossils found in 1944 all made sense from an evolutionary standpoint *EXCEPT* for the fake (Piltdown), which stood out like a sore thumb for *not* being consistent with evolution. Real fossils fit the predictions of evolution. A fake fossil didn't. This is an excellent demonstration of how real fossil discoveries do indeed fall into place as one would expect via evolution -- but that a fraudulent fossil didn't fit precisely because it *wasn't* truly the result of an evolutionary process.

Logic will get you banned yet...

Next you'll say that if dating methods had confirmed Piltdown, it would have falsified evolution.

Gould wrote a notorious series of essays claiming that Teilhard de Chardin was in on the hoax, or at least had guilty knowledge of the perps. There's an interesting essay here.

[Con X-Poser]

Well now, what are your qualifications? You sure are quick to castigate a world-class scientist, but you guys sure get quiet fast when asked to provide your own qualifications.

[general_re]

Ah, but "experts" defended Piltdown, Kinsey's research, cold fusion, spontaneous generation. "Experts" mocked Pasteur.

You have some evidence that this result is either fraudulent or wrong? Aside from an increasingly improbable series of what-if's, that is...

Essentially, what I am asked to believe is the notion that professionals in their fields are wrong or deceptive far more often than they are right or honest, and thus that this article is wrong or fraudulent - which is, as I have already noted, a fallacy, but there you go. But something makes me think that you yourself don't really believe the original premise to be true - if you do, I'm curious what you do in lieu of visiting a doctor every now and then.

After all, medical experts have, at times, been heard to defend such things as homeopathic remedies, phrenology, Laetrile, and collodial silver, all of which are outright quackery. Obviously, from this, we can apply your logic and see that the entire medical profession is a fraud and a lie. And then we can square the circle, and conclude that your personal doctor is inevitably a fraud, if you like.

Or will you be vaccinating your children anyway? ;)

[farmer18th]

... that professionals in their fields are wrong or deceptive far more often than they are right or honest, and thus that this article is wrong or fraudulent

I didn't claim that, only that the admission of "experts agree" into a dialectic isn't really useful in an attempt to prove assertions beyond a reasonable doubt. If someone tells me that "all the experts are in agreement here," it's reasonable to inquire as to how they came to their conclusions. If those reasons aren't forthcoming, it's also reasonable to conclude that the cloak of "expertise" has been called in to shield further inquiry.

[general_re]

If someone tells me that "all the experts are in agreement here," it's reasonable to inquire as to how they came to their conclusions.

Which questions of yours do you feel are not being addresed satisfactorily?

If those reasons aren't forthcoming, it's also reasonable to conclude that the cloak of "expertise" has been called in to shield further inquiry.

Is it? We can't all be experts on everything - the days of Renaissance Men have come and gone. What do you say when the experts tell you that to fully understand their reasoning, it requires an investment of a decade of your life, so that you might come to speak their language?

At some point, we all have to defer to those better qualified than we are, whether that's in your doctor's office, to your plumber, to your lawyer, or to people who have invested the time and effort necessary to become experts in the biology of plants. I know something of the process, so I can perform a smell test on stuff like this, but the nitty-gritty details are best left to those who know it better than I. The biologists defer to me in my field, and I defer to them in theirs - it saves us both a lot of wasted time trying to become something that we are not.

But again, I suspect you know this and live your own life in much the same way. If, God forbid, your doctor told you that your chest X-ray showed that you had lung cancer, I doubt you'd spend much time screwing around by asking him if he'd considered the possibility that the X-ray machine-makers had perpetrated a fraud on him, or by suggesting that the fact that doctors occasionally prove wrong in diagnoses meant that he was likely wrong in your case - at best, you'd seek a second opinion. From another expert, of course. Nor do I think that if your teeth were bothering you, you'd be likely to grab the old Dremel and some spackle and head into the bathroom to take care of it yourself - you'd probably go see an expert in the field of teeth, and forego the armchair quarterbacking while he told you what the problem was.

Or are you really this difficult with everyone who purports to know more than you about some particular subject?

[farmer18th]

Which questions of yours do you feel are not being addresed satisfactorily?

I believe I've already articulated them, but again:

1. On what basis can we be sure this a new species or just a new observation?
2. How, specifically, is genetic relationship determined?
3. Which labs have confirmed these results?


At some point, we all have to defer to those better qualified than we are

Agreed and please spare me another dentist doctor analogy. Here's the difference between your observation and mine, and let's go with plumbers this time:

I know very little about plumbing and my plumber tells me my pipes need to be replaced because they have mutated into a new species of plumbing. Some of the elbow joints have sprouted wings and are about to fly away, possibly taking my house with it. On the face of it, this seems so contrary to common sense, that I ask the expert to explain his conclusion. He responds by saying, "you have to trust the exports."

Hyperbole? Yes. Unreasonable? No. The question of evolution touches upon our existence, our relationship to God, and our understanding of truths that have sustained civilization for much longer than the tawdry reign of Charles Darwin. These are questions you simply can't leave to experts, and particularly to scientists, because--as C.S. Lewis intimated--they really haven't been taught how to think. They measure and extrapolate and boil water and drop grids over dusty chimp graves in Africa, but they simply can't be the last word on the origin of man. Each and every one of their conclusions must be proven, not just to their own peers, but to the world of thinkers.

[general_re]

1. On what basis can we be sure this a new species or just a new observation?

You can never be "sure" of that, any more than you can ever be 100% sure that the plant wasn't dropped there by the space-faring inhabitants of the fourth planet of Zeta Reticuli. Certainty is not a reasonable standard to apply to this, or to most other human endeavors. You will have to settle for "more likely than not", or, if you're really lucky, "much more likely than not".

2. How, specifically, is genetic relationship determined?

As I said, the relationship is determined by genomic similarity, as measured by statistical comparisons of the two strands. If you'd like to know more about the exact mathematics of the statistical tests used, I can suggest some good textbooks to get you started, and if you'd like to know more about the exact mechanics of genome extraction and sequencing, I can solicit recommendations for where you might begin to learn about such things from some folks who are qualified to make same.

3. Which labs have confirmed these results?

I think I've already addressed this as well - as this is the initial finding, it is unlikely that anyone has yet confirmed it. Someone has to be first, after all.

Some of the elbow joints have sprouted wings and are about to fly away, possibly taking my house with it. On the face of it, this seems so contrary to common sense, that I ask the expert to explain his conclusion. He responds by saying, "you have to trust the exports."

Clever. Except that, unlike plumbing, in biology, very few people outside the field have even a rudimentary understanding of the field, and therefore they have no idea at all about what is or isn't "common sense" in the field of biology. After all, if you want to learn about plumbing, you can always start banging away on your own pipes, and eventually learn something through trial and error, if nothing else. If you want to learn something about biology, it's a bit more complicated - unlike the sorts of things professional plumbers do, the sorts of things that professional biologists do are simply not accessible to most people. I bet you have a pipe wrench in your house somewhere - have you also got a 16-capillary Applied Biosystems ABI Prism 3100 handy? Do you even know what a 16-capillary Applied Biosystems ABI Prism 3100 is, or what it does? Are you sure that plumbing is a good analogy for whether or not we have some inkling of what constitutes common sense in biology?

I think not. At best, we have some rumbling in our bellies that lets us know that this sort of thing is uncomfortable to us, but that's hardly a basis for critique. You give me, in a nutshell, "it doesn't feel right", and ask me to substitute your judgement for the plumber's, and to do it based on nothing more than that. I should think you would not be surprised if I were loathe to proceed on those grounds.

The question of evolution touches upon our existence, our relationship to God, and our understanding of truths that have sustained civilization for much longer than the tawdry reign of Charles Darwin. These are questions you simply can't leave to experts, and particularly to scientists, because--as C.S. Lewis intimated--they really haven't been taught how to think. They measure and extrapolate and boil water and drop grids over dusty chimp graves in Africa, but they simply can't be the last word on the origin of man.

Reality is what it is, regardless of how we feel about it. It's rather implacable, in that respect. And the reality is that evolution via natural selection is, far and away, the best explanation for the diversity of life on earth, regardless of whether the biologists persuade every one of the thinkers, or none of them at all. That is, either way, of no consequence whatsoever to the truth of the thing. Persuading others is always a nice thing to do, but failing to do so hardly makes it false.

And as to whether it shakes to the core our relationship with God...the philosophical and theological implications of a heliocentric solar system didn't change the reality of it, any more than the perceived implications of evolution change the reality of it. I am sorry to be the one to break it to you, but if our relationship with God is somehow contingent upon evolution being false, we will simply have to rethink our relationship with God, and come to a better understanding of it based on what we know to be true and what we know to be false. The fault is neither Darwin's, nor the biologist's, nor God's, in that case - the fault for an imperfect relationship with God, based on something once thought to be false, but now known to be true, lies solely with us. And it will be up to us to fix it within ourselves...

[farmer18th]

You can never be "sure" of that,

You're beginning to sound like a theologian. You've just admitted that we can't be certain this really is a new species and that we have to accept the claim on faith?

If you'd like to know more about the exact mathematics of the statistical tests used,

Pretend evolution is on trial and a lawyer asks you to explain to a jury of layman why you believe your statistical tests are true. At this point, you can't point them to a textbook or a workshop. You need to make the case in a paragraph or two. Try it. Can it be done? Submit the test to your own paternity and answer the question: if your children could be taken from you on the basis of failing this test, would you risk losing them? If your life were on the line, and failing this test meant you would be executed, would you submit to this methodology? If the world itself were on the line, would you risk global death if this methodology were wrong? How confident are you?

Applied Biosystems ABI Prism 3100 handy?...

For both sequencing and fragment analysis? I suppose I could rent one, but I'm not certain I would rest the claim of origin on this thing, unless the people who use it are willing to defend the logic behind its machinations.

And the reality is that evolution via natural selection is, far and away, the best explanation for the diversity of life on earth, regardless of whether the biologists persuade every one of the thinkers, or none of them at all.

You'll forgive me if this sounds like a catechism. I could just as easily say, "reality is what it is: the best explanation for the incredible variety of life on this small planet in the center of a unverse full of space and hydrogen is the awesome creative power of a God with unlimited intelligence."

[general_re]

You're beginning to sound like a theologian. You've just admitted that we can't be certain this really is a new species and that we have to accept the claim on faith?

No. Would you like me to explain the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning to you? It's a popular topic - I get to bring it up every now and then around here, especially when people demand "proof" in non-mathematical contexts.

Pretend evolution is on trial and a lawyer asks you to explain to a jury of layman why you believe your statistical tests are true. At this point, you can't point them to a textbook or a workshop. You need to make the case in a paragraph or two. Try it. Can it be done?

No, and they don't give anything resembling a full picture of what the basis for their conclusions is in courtrooms, either, because when they try, it's generally a disaster, as per the Simpson trial. Usually what you get in a courtroom boils down to precious little more than "I'm an expert, so take my word for it."

I know we've all had our attention spans ruined by television these days, but some things just aren't compressible into fifteen-second soundbites - at least, not if you want to really understand whatever the issue is.

I suppose I could rent one, but I'm not certain I would rest the claim of origin on this thing, unless the people who use it are willing to defend the logic behind its machinations.

What makes you think they aren't?

So, since we've explored a few principles that appear to be driving your criticism thus far - nothing is taken as axiomatic, all underlying assumptions must be proven on the spot, and we have to explain it all in three minutes or less - let's put them all to work, shall we? You spoke earlier of our relationship with God, but, of course, the underlying assumption that you declined to prove is that the existence of such a relationship is predicated on the existence of God. Please prove the logical truth of your underlying assumption; namely, that God exists. Any premise you use in so doing must be proven itself, in turn, naturally, so that we're not sitting on top of any nasty unproven assertions in our proof. Kindly refrain from pointing to any external collection of knowledge, such as the Bible or any type of apologetics or doctrinal or theological exercise - you're on the stand now, and you can't just send the jury off to Bible camp for a few weeks. Oh, and make sure you fit it all into about 200 words or less - wouldn't want to lose the jury in a storm of irrelevant detail, after all. And if you fail, I'll just shoot you on the spot.

Ready to play, or did you have any suggestions about how we might modify the game a bit?

Personally, my suggestion is that maybe we shouldn't pretend that we can take complicated issues and both make them simple and do justice to them. All in order to satisfy the self-proclaimed "thinkers". The thinkers will muddle through somehow, just like the rest of us.

I could just as easily say, "reality is what it is: the best explanation for the incredible variety of life on this small planet in the center of a unverse full of space and hydrogen is the awesome creative power of a God with unlimited intelligence."

It's a theory. Now it's time to lay your cards down on the table and have a look at your evidence supporting that theory. What have you got?

After all, while we might argue about the worth of those cards, it's rather difficult to avoid admitting that the biologists do have a few ;)

[PatrickHenry]

Cards on table placemarker.

[VadeRetro]

I went to high school in the 1950s and Piltdown was debunked in the science books then. I think you misstate the facts.

Farmer's story has evolved to where he meant an unnamed-but-famous radio talk show host and lawyer in one particular show. Funny, but I can't get an answer on the basis for this recurring pamphlet-claptrap claim of discarded Piltdown Man being being cited in High School texts. That seems odd, since it keeps getting said.

But of course, cults have their own literature, their own mythos, their own urban legends.

[Dark Knight]

>>The weed sets seed three months after germinating and has little yellow flowers. The species, which came into existance about 30 years ago, has been called Senecio eboracensis, after Eboracum, the Roman name for York. According to the research, it has now spread to spread to several sites around York, but only ever as a weed on disturbed ground. <<

Just for fun, was this hybrid man made initially? Would that make it Intelligently Designed?

DK

[plusone]

From the weed's standpoint, yes, I think so. I guess we would be its God. But given the utter complexity of everything, at the macro level, with the structure of the cosmos, and the micro level, the stunning complexity of DNA, it is hard to understand how anyone can consider pure evolution to be possible. This can't all be the result of mistake and accident piled one atop the other. Thanks.